150 YEARS AGO: General orders arrest of former governor for his safety

Friday

Jun 28, 2013 at 12:01 AMJun 28, 2013 at 1:00 PM

Rudi Keller

JEFFERSON CITY — Brig. Gen. Egbert Brown issued orders to arrest former Gov. Robert Stewart and keep him away from “ardent spirits.”

Stewart, of St. Joseph, was governor from 1857 to 1861 and warned against secession in his farewell message. His pro-Union stance had made him enemies, including men who in 1861 attacked him in his hometown and committed a “nameless indignity” on him. He had been struck with a brick and tied up by four men.

Rough treatment was out, Brown ordered. Stewart was to be kept in close confinement. “Have him kept safely but kindly treated,” Brown ordered.

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ST. LOUIS — The Daily Missouri Republican printed without comment President Abraham Lincoln’s May letter to Maj. Gen. John Schofield warning him to avoid the “pestilent factional quarrel” raging between Radical abolitionists and more conservative Unionists.

The letter had included private advice to Schofield and was not intended for public view. But Lincoln had also sent a copy to the man Schofield replaced, Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis, who was a favorite of the Radicals, and he had been sharing the note that accompanied the copy with his allies.

“After months of labor to reconcile the difficulty, it seemed to grow worse and worse, until I felt it my duty to break it up somehow, and, as I could not remove Governor Gamble, I had to remove General Curtis,” Lincoln wrote.

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ST. LOUIS — The 9th Missouri State Militia Cavalry would be rearmed and equipped as soon as possible, Maj. Gen. John Schofield wrote to Col. Odon Guitar.

He had sent word to Washington, Schofield wrote, urging them to be ready to send anything he could not supply immediately from stores on hand at the St. Louis Arsenal.

The dispatch to Washington read: “This regiment I am anxious to have fully armed and equipped, as soon as it can be. It is operating in a region of country where it is necessary to be well armed, and from the number of troops withdrawn from the department to reinforce Grant’s Army, it is particularly desirable to have this regiment effective."

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ST. LOUIS — The Daily Missouri Republican republished a poem, “Lines on the Death of General Nathaniel Lyon” by Florence Willesford Borron of Boonville, 60 lines of verse that praised his devotion to his country.

Lyon was the aggressive Union officer who seized Jefferson City in June 1861 and defeated the gathering state rebel army, the Missouri State Guard, at Boonville a few days later. Lyon died Aug. 10, 1861, at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek near Springfield, the first Union general to be killed in action.

The poem praised his bravery and sacrifice:

Where triple-handed — three to one —

The foeman’s columns stood.

He gave his country’s altar-stone,

The baptism of blood.

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VICKSBURG — A letter from the trenches warned Lt. Gen. John Pemberton that time was growing short to save his army if food shortages evident in daily rations reflected the true condition of the garrison.

The men were receiving “one biscuit and one small bit of bacon each day,” the anonymous letter, signed only Many Soldiers, said. If they could not be fed, it was time to break out of the Union encirclement or take other decisive action.

“If you can’t feed us, you had better surrender us, horrible as the idea is, than suffer this noble army to disgrace themselves by desertion,” the letter said. “I tell you plainly, men are not going to lie here and perish, if they do love their country dearly. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and hunger will compel a man to do almost anything.”

The situation would reach a crisis soon, the writer warned. “You had better heed a warning voice, though it is the voice of a private soldier. This army is now ripe for mutiny, unless it can be fed.”